Giant rock piles on Grand Manan shoreline drive N.B. café to close its doors
Company never finished $15M North Head Wharf project, MP now demanding answers
Kiera Dall'Osto's dream of running a waterfront café on Grand Manan has not survived the piles of rock and rubble that persisted for years outside her patio, as well as summers of dust and unpredictable hours of heavy equipment operations.
Dall'Osto said she kept pleading with various levels of government for the return of the expansive ocean views that won her heart and drew tourists to North Head Wharf.
Instead, mounds of debris remained a blight on the shoreline and now, at last, she has given up.
"I was feeling really beaten down," she said, explaining her decision to close the Old Well House Café after seven seasons. She estimates she spent at least $200,000 on property upgrades, including a new deck in 2020.
"Everything we've put into this place, nothing left to show for it," she said. "It's really devastating."
The rocks are what's been left behind by dredging work that was supposed to be completed in January 2023, according to the terms of the $15.8-million federal contract awarded in 2021 to Greenfield Construction.
The job also included upgrades to the fishermen's wharf.
New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson says he's never seen an infrastructure project so badly botched by the federal government, the department responsible and the contractor.
"On top of that, I have been getting the runaround from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans," said Williamson.
In 2023, Williamson said he paid a visit to Grand Manan to see the site and at that time was assured the work was continuing. He said he was assured by the DFO again, after the federal election, that work was continuing.
Now he says the federal procurement office is telling him that, "in fact, the work was stalled last year and hasn't moved forward. So I don't know, but we're entitled to some answers here."
Williamson also took to Facebook to berate those responsible, including the DFO, which he says, has refused to communicate honestly with officials of the village or the public.
"Four years is how long families and businesses in North Head have lived with a stalled, eyesore of a construction site where a working wharf should be operating today," he posted Monday morning.
He accuses the company of malfeasance and fleecing New Brunswick taxpayers.
"Why this firm was ever given a contract in southwest New Brunswick makes no sense to me," he told CBC News.
CBC News left a message with an employee at Greenfield's Miramichi office, seeking an interview with the company's president, Carolyn Tozer. That request went unanswered.
No clarity for village council
Chris Rayner, the chief administrative officer for Grand Manan, expressed his frustration June 2 at a village council meeting about the number of times he's tried to get an accurate status report on the project this year.
He said he sent an email to Small Craft Harbours on Feb. 5, seeking an update on whether construction was going to resume.
Small Craft Harbours is Fisheries and Ocean's nationwide program that operates and maintains a system of harbours for commercial fishers and other users.
Rayner said the answer he got back was that Greenfield Construction was expected to return to the project in the spring.
When that didn't happen, Rayner said he sent another request for an update on May 23 and got no response at all.
On May 30, Rayner said he reached out again and was told the company was "in the middle of a storm water evaluation project."
Dissatisfied, council then voted to write to the DFO seeking clarity.
Ottawa says Greenfield's out
Public Services and Procurement Canada says the work was taken "out of the contractor's hands" in the fall of 2024 and the contractor's bonding company was notified at the same time.
"Since this time, PSPC has been in ongoing discussions with the bonding company to ensure the work resumes at the earliest opportunity, but parties have not reached a mutually beneficial solution," said a written statement provided by Janie Haché, on behalf of PSPC. "As a result, we do not yet have a schedule for the completion of the remainder of the work."
CBC News asked PSPC how much of the $15.8 million awarded for the contract had been paid out, but PSPC declined to disclose those amounts to protect the integrity of ongoing discussions.
Haché said no lawsuits have been filed in relation to the contract and there are no outstanding PSPC contracts with Greenfield Construction Ltd. in New Brunswick.
Call for investigation
Wiliamson says he'll be asking the Office of the Procurement Ombud to "investigate the mess on North Head."
He says the shore is still burdened with "tons and tons" of debris "that the contract indicated could be hazardous, which is why there was a condition to remove it off the island."
Meanwhile, Dall'Osto says she will miss Grand Manan and the community that became so dear to her young family. She says they are leaving New Brunswick and plan to start over in another province.
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